Summary

The Poverty and Social Exclusion Survey of Britain is the most comprehensive and scientifically rigorous survey of its kind ever undertaken. It provides unparalleled detail about deprivation and exclusion among the British population at the close of the twentieth century. The survey uses a particularly powerful scientific approach to measuring poverty which incorporates the views of members of the public, rather than judgments by social scientists, about what are the necessities of life that all adults and children should be able to afford. It also calculates the levels of deprivation that constitutes poverty by using scientific methods rather than arbitrary decisions. The Poverty and Social Exclusion Survey of Britain is also the first national study to attempt to measure social exclusion, and to introduce a methodology for poverty and social exclusion which is internationally comparable.